


Silence What We Come From

by MercurialTenacity



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adoption, Child Abuse, Childhood, Childhood Romance, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Obscurial Credence Barebone, Parental Death (Implied), Percival Graves (Briefly), Period-Typical Homophobia, Pre-Canon, Religious Extremism, enforced gender roles, or the start of it anyway, silent films
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 08:19:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10158533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercurialTenacity/pseuds/MercurialTenacity
Summary: Credence is three and he can’t find his mother.Credence is five and he’s not as good as Chastity.Credence is twelve and a boy smiles at him.Credence is fifteen and there’s poison inside him.Credence doesn’t know he’s an obscurial.  He doesn’t know what the twisting inside himself is.  He doesn’t know why he can’t be good.  He tries.  He fights.  He doesn’t know what he’s fighting.  He doesn’t know if he’s going to survive.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a happy story. I do not write happy stories. Major warnings for child abuse in particular, so please read the tags. Though actual physical abuse is not shown on screen, the lead up and after affects are.

He is three and he can’t find his mother.

He waits in the room, and he waits.  He cries, and he waits.  He can’t find his mother.

The people who come are not his mother, and he doesn’t want to go with them.  She might come back.  She said to wait, and he doesn’t understand who these people are.

The woman he meets is not his mother.  The man who brought him here is speaking, somewhere above him.  “The mother was a peculiar sort.  Not married.  Bit of an oddness to her, from what I understand.”

“Well, we’ll take care of that.”  The woman smiles and her voice is soft.  There’s a little girl behind her, watching him with a curious expression.  The woman kneels down in front of him and sets her hands on his shoulders.  She gives him a bright look. “Hello Credence.  I’m going to be your Ma.”

He frowns.  He doesn’t know what credence is and he doesn’t know why he’s here.

“Come along now.”  The woman takes his hand.  “Let’s get you settled.”

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Credence is three and he isn’t hungry anymore.  Ma gives him plenty to eat, keeps him warm, and he likes to play with his sister.  The church can get drafty, but sitting on the rug with Chastity in front of the big fireplace, Credence is always warm.

Chastity has little cloth dolls that she sits in a circle, and Credence loves them.  They have dresses and little bonnets, and the fabric scraps they’re made from are bright and patterned.  He picks one of them up, the one with the yellow checkered dress, but Chastity tugs it out of his hand.

“No, Credence!  Those are for girls.”

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Credence is four and there’s something inside him.  When the feelings inside him have nowhere else to go, when they threaten to shred him to pieces with heat and fear and a deep swirling pounding ache tearing at him from the inside until, he lets something inside him have them.  He doesn’t know what it is.  He doesn’t know he’s the only one who has it.

It keeps him calm.  He doesn’t remember not having it.  He’d talked about it to Chastity once, tried to describe the way it siphoned off the burning and comforted him, but she said she didn’t have one and she almost told Ma before Credence convinced her he’d made it up.  He almost thought he had.  Almost.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Credence is five and he’s not as good as Chastity.  He wants to do as Ma says.  He tries.  He prays every day, asks God for guidance and forgiveness, tries to listen to Ma.  But he can’t.  He can’t sit still enough in church, doesn’t make his bed well enough, forgets the lessons Ma teaches him.  He doesn’t understand why it’s so much harder for him.

He’s huddled in a corner, curled up and leaning sideways against the wall.  Chastity finds him like that, sniffling with his arms wrapped around himself.

“Credence!  Come _on_ , Ma’s looking for you!  You’re gonna be late.”  Credence curls in on himself tighter.  He doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to listen to Ma’s sermons on the cold sidewalk.  “Do you want to get punished again?”

He shakes his head furiously, sniffling harder.

“We’re going to 48th street.  Ma says there will be lots of people there, and we have to help them repent.  Credence, get _up_!”

“I want to run away.”  He doesn’t know why he says it.  It’s horrible, it’s a horrible thing to say and he feels shame run through him that he even thought it. 

“You can’t do that, God will hate you!  Do you want God to hate you?”

He shakes his head again, sobbing into his arms.  “I didn’t mean it.  I – I’m sorry.  I want to be g – good, I do, Ch – Chastity –”

Chastity sighs and shifts from foot to foot, finally kneeling down in front of him.  “Then just do as Ma says.  You’d be fine if you just listened better.”  She wraps an arm around him, and he lets her pull him up to his feet.  He clings to her for a second, snuffling into her shoulder, before she pulls away.  “Come on.  We haven’t been to 48th street before, it’ll be neat.”  She takes his wrist and tugs him along while Credence scrubs at his eyes, wishing with everything he has that he weren’t so wicked.

He stands beside Ma in the cold.  He hands out leaflets while Chastity smiles and Ma preaches.  He sees the way people walking by look at them.  He doesn’t know why people look at them that way.  Ma is here to help them, he’s here to help them too, they’re all here to help these people, so he doesn’t understand why they all look at them the way they do.  It shouldn’t bother him, but it does.

It’s that evening when Ma pulls him aside.  He just wants to finish his chores and go to bed, but he doesn’t dare say that to Ma.

“Do you have something you want to tell me Credence?”

His heart drops.  He’d already been punished, he’d gone to the meeting, what had he done now?  “No Ma,” he says quietly.

“Are you sure?”  She’s leaning down in front of him and he knows that tone, he knows what’s coming next but he doesn’t know why and he doesn’t know how to stop it.

“Yes Ma.”  His voice is barely a whisper.

“Chastity told me you’re not happy here.”

No.  _No._   Credence feels himself burn through with icy heat, his mind is reeling because _no,_ he hadn’t meant it, he didn’t mean anything, it wasn’t true _it wasn’t._   “Ma – I’m sorry Ma I didn’t mean it I – I – Please Ma it’s not true –”

“Are you saying Chastity is a liar?”

Credence is gasping, fighting against the burning in his chest and the hot tears building behind his eyes.  “N – no Ma.”

“Then what do you have to say to me?”

“I didn’t mean it Ma, I –”

“Don’t lie to me.”  Ma looks so disappointed, so sad, and Credence’s stomach is twisting with the thought that he’s done this to her.  “What did you do wrong?”

“I…”  Credence is staring at the floor as the tears spill over, running down his cheeks in hot streams.

“Were you being grateful for how much I love you and the home I provide for you?”

“No Ma.”

“So what did you do wrong?”

“I – I wasn’t grateful for – for you.”

“And?”

“For how much you love me and – for my home.”

“And what do you deserve?”

Credence is sobbing now.  Sobbing and standing in front of Ma and staring at the floor.  “T – to be p – punished.”

Afterwards, when it’s over, he reaches deep for what’s inside him.  It’s not quite like running away but it’s close.  If he lets it go, lets it swell in him, sometimes there’s less of him and more of it and he doesn’t have to think so much, lets it take the current that’s boiling inside him because he doesn’t have anything else to do with it.  It makes sense.  He can’t stand the current, and it needs it.

He can choose when to let it happen.  He needs it when he’s scared, needs it to take away the pain and let him breathe again, and he can choose when he needs it most.

Until he can’t.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Credence is six and he doesn’t remember being three.  He knows Ma loves him, and he does everything he can to be good for her.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Credence is eight and he cuts his hand.  He’s in the street outside the church when he trips, falls hard and cuts his palm.  Chastity picks him up, takes him inside to Ma, and he hopes she isn’t mad if the blood on his shirt stains.

Ma takes his hand, pulls him gently into her lap, and wipes away the blood.  She shushes him consolingly when he cries at the sting of cleaning it, wraps it up in a bandage, kisses his forehead and holds him close.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Credence is ten and he’s helping Chastity put up posters.  She’s happy to do it, likes spreading their message as far as possible.  Credence likes walking around the city anyway, and he doesn’t mind holding the posters for Chastity to paste onto walls.  It’s all right at least, until they stop to put up a poster near a group of boys hanging about the corner.

“Ooh, scared of the witches?”

“Are they gonna turn you into frogs? Huh?”

And Credence has figured it out by now, he’s heard enough people call them freaks and lunatics and fanatics to know that no one cares if they’re trying to help.

“They’ll see,” Chastity says brightly. “They’ll come to us begging to be saved once we start flushing the witches out.”  She always did take it better than Credence.  Every look of contempt seems to make her swell a little bit, hold her head up with the certainty of the battle she’s fighting.

Credence stares at the cobbles beneath his feet.  He wants to go home.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Credence is twelve and a boy smiles at him.  A boy with dirty blond hair and smudges on his face smiles at him, and he smiles back.

The boy’s name is Thomas and Ma serves him porridge.  He’s funny and headstrong, and he’s hungry or he wouldn’t be here.  He pokes Credence under the table and grins at him when Chastity talks about how to spot a witch, and it’s not funny but Credence has to dig his fingernails into his palm to keep from grinning back where Ma can see.

They take their stacks of leaflets and walk out side by side.  Thomas knows the city, knows when the bakeries throw out yesterday’s pastries and how to make friends with the stray dogs down the block.

Thomas never does hand out the leaflets.  He’s good at getting rid of them so Ma doesn’t find out, and he gets rid of Credence’s too.  Credence never could just do as Ma said.  He knows it’s wrong, but he hates the stupid leaflets and he hates the looks strangers give him as they walk past.

They sneak into a cinema once.  They talk about it for weeks before, and it only started as an offhand comment, an idea.  Thomas says something about how thrilling one of the pictures looks, Credence says how Ma would never approve, Thomas gets that look in his eyes and Credence smiles.

It takes some doing.  They have to get there in the first place, find a way in, and make it back before Ma notices anything is amiss.  Credence doesn’t even want to think what Ma would do if she found out, and once they get to the theater he’s almost shaking with the fear and excitement and thrill.

It’s huge, there on the corner, letters down the side of the building and crowds around the entrance, names of the pictures in big letters, and Credence can’t believe what they’re about to do as Thomas takes his hand, takes a breath, and ducks past the ticket counter.

It’s dark in the theater and they settle themselves in the back, looking as small and inconspicuous as they’re able.  It occurs to Credence, not for the first time, just how absurd the whole exercise is.  How had they gotten it into their heads to come all the way here, risk so much, just to see the pictures?  Even now they could still get caught, what if someone asks to see their tickets?  Does anybody do that, come in to check people’s tickets?  But when the screen lights up, when the thin white letters fade into view, Credence gasps.  He grabs Thomas’ arm, looks over to see him grinning his head off and yes, yes, it’s worth it.

Thomas keeps up a running playback after the picture ends and Credence listens, buzzing and elated and thinking how nice Thomas’ voice sounds.  “I wish my Ma left me for some old tramp to find.  That kid was doing all right, better’n havin’ a ma who works all day and still don’t got no food.”

They’re giddy and buoyant, joining the crowd of people streaming out onto the street.  Somewhere in the crowd they’d linked their hands together, in an effort not to get separated maybe, and the crowd is dispersing now but Credence still doesn’t want to be separated. 

“And did you see when they ran from that copper?  They got a trick or two!  Had a decent racket going, they did.”

“What,” Credence laughs, “smashing people’s windows just to charge to fix them up?”

“Make a decent living that way, I figure!”

Credence laughs again and the airy feeling lasts all night.

Being with Thomas is different.  It’s not like being with other boys.  Credence thinks it’s not how it’s supposed to be with boys, but he likes it.  It makes him feel lighter, happy, and he likes it when Thomas is nearby.  They’ve never talked about it, but they act differently together in front of other people.  There’s less touching, less laughing, they stand a little farther apart.  Credence probably wouldn’t even notice it – except that he does.  It feels so nice when they’re alone and he doesn’t have to keep track of whether he puts a hand on Thomas’ shoulder or smiles a little too much.  They’ve never talked about it, because they don’t have to.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Credence is twelve and he has a new sister.  Modesty is little and clever.  She watches everything.  Credence can see her taking it all in, feeling out the rules.  She’s punished three times in her first week but not after that.  She learns so fast, listening to all of Ma’s sermons and repeating back the evilness of witchcraft, helping Chastity at meetings.  Ma and Chastity never seem to suspect that she doesn’t really believe it.  Credence knows, because she learned about him too.  She tells him about her family, all of her siblings she’s not allowed to speak of, and when she finds him curled in on himself in fear or shame or the effort of holding back the thing inside him she takes his hand.

Sometimes he can tell what lets it out – a bad punishment, mockery, being overwhelmed with fear or anger.  But lately it’s been little things too.  Chastity reminding him to be grateful.  The looks people give him in the street.  Every time it slips out, it’s a little easier for it to do so again.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Credence is thirteen and Thomas is in his room.  Credence doesn’t know if it’s allowed exactly, but Chastity has other girls over sometimes, so he figures of all the things Ma could find out about this one is probably okay.  All Credence’s chores are done and Ma isn’t home right now anyway.  They’re lying side by side on the bed, laughing and talking about nothing in particular.

It had started with a teasing shove.  Thomas had whispered how Ma’s porridge tasted like it was made out of her leaflets and Credence had gasped, stifling a giggle, reaching out to give him a shove on the shoulder.  And Thomas had shoved him back.  They wrestled playfully back and forth until Credence found himself held down in the pillows and he pushed back laughing but not, he found, actually wanting to get up.  Thomas had flopped down next to him laughing and happy, and they lay there, legs tangled together and arms touching. 

Credence feels warm with Thomas next to him and he shifts just a little, sliding a couple inches until his head is on Thomas’ shoulder.  Thomas exhales a deep, contented sigh and Credence smiles.  It feels comfortable, and right, and uncomplicated.

And it all ends when the door opens.

Credence sits up so fast he’s dizzy, but not fast enough.  Ma is standing there, hand on the doorknob, looking livid.

“What are you doing?”  Her voice is cold and low and Credence cringes.

“Ma’am, we were just –”

“Be quiet, Thomas.”  She speaks without taking her eyes off of Credence.  “What were you doing?”

Credence is shaking, he doesn’t know what Ma thinks is happening, doesn’t know what she wants him to say.  He wants to reach for Thomas’ hand, but even if he doesn’t know what makes that wrong he knows he can’t.  “We were talking Ma, we were –”

“Don’t you dare.”

What in the world is he supposed to say?  They were talking, and maybe they weren’t talking quite the same way as other boys, maybe that’s what Ma means, but Credence doesn’t have any words for that, couldn’t explain it no matter how hard he tried.  “Please Ma.  We didn’t – we weren’t – _please._ ”

Ma’s expression doesn’t soften.  “Thomas.  Come here.”

Thomas startles beside him, looks at Credence wide eyed and pale.

“Now.”

Credence wants to say something, wants to do anything to stop whatever Ma is going to do to Thomas, but he can’t.  He can’t find his voice, and he just watches as Thomas climbs off the bed, walks over to Ma, and she lays an arm around his shoulders and turns him to face her.

“Come along now Thomas.  I’m going to have a word to your parents about the wicked things you have been doing to my son.”  If possible Thomas goes even paler.  The profile of his face which Credence can see from the bed is confused and scared.  He tries to turn back to look at Credence but Ma holds his shoulders firm.  “Credence.  You will wait for your punishment here.  Be prepared to explain to me what you have done wrong.”  She pulls Thomas from the room, and Credence hears the lock on the door click.

Credence wants to move, but he can’t.  He wants to run after Ma and Thomas, but he can’t.  There are tears on his cheeks but he’s too shocked and terrified to cry.  He can feel the thing inside of him churning, distinct from the painful squeeze in his chest and the burning of his stomach.  It’s churning because he can’t hold it still.  So quiet when Thomas was there and now moving again, there to take over when he can’t hold it back.

He has no idea how long he waits for Ma.  It’s horrible to wait, and it’s horrible when she comes back.  He confesses to things he doesn’t know the name for, doesn’t know if he even did, cries and begs, says he’s sorry more times than he can count even if he doesn’t know what for.  But it must have been awful what he did, it must have been, it would have to be for Ma to do this.  And he doesn’t know what it was but he knows the idea, knows enough that it will never, never happen again.

He doesn’t think it will ever end, but it does.  He’s left sobbing, bloody and aching and alone, and it’s almost a relief when the thing inside him offers a different kind of pain.  It tears at him from the inside, twisting and convulsing until there’s nothing he can do.  He doesn’t know what will happen to him or how far it’s going to go – it’s eaten around the edges of his consciousness before, but never this much and never with so much pain.  He clings to the sheets of his bed, panting, sobbing raggedly, panic building in him all over again and he has never in his life felt so alone.  It pours out of him, breaks him apart until he’s not sure if it’s in him or he’s in it.  It’s howling, screaming, and it rips his world in half.

Thomas never comes back.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Credence is thirteen and Modesty asks him where he comes from.  She asks who his family is and he frowns at her.

“Ma and Chastity, of course.”

“Well sure, they are now.”  Modesty wrinkles up her nose and shrugs.  “But what about before?”

Credence doesn’t really know what she means.  In the abstract maybe, but he’s never thought of himself as having any other family.  He doesn’t, so why should he think about it?  He shakes his head.  “No, Modesty.  It’s just Ma.”  She looks at him like that’s not a very good answer, but he doesn’t understand what she’s asking.  “Look, it’s best not to talk about that sort of thing.  All right?”

Modesty shrugs again.  “Okay.”

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Credence is fourteen and Modesty gets to play with Chastity’s old dolls.  She says that one of them is a witch, and the rest have to find out who it is and kill her before they all get cursed.

The yellow checkered one is the witch, it turns out, and Credence can’t quite understand why that makes his chest ache.

 

\----------------------------------------

 

Credence is fifteen and there’s poison inside him.  There’s poison eating him from the inside out, burrowing into him deep, making him choke and cry and beg his mind to be still, to be quiet.  He tries, he tries so _Goddamn hard_.  It’s like he can’t keep track of his mind.  There’s something in him and if he slips, lets down his guard, it spills out.  It hurts, more than anything else.  More sometimes even than Ma with a belt.  He prays for it to stop but, it doesn’t.  He’s terrified of what Ma would do if she knew – there’s a wickedness in him and he can’t get it out.  She would.  She would get it out but he’s scared and he’s weak and he doesn’t dare say a word.  If he were stronger maybe he would let her.

He sits through the meetings and he does as Ma asks.  He does the best he can, listens to everything she says, because he knows what he is.  He can hold it back sometimes, but not forever.  It’s getting harder.  Each time it takes over there’s more of it and less of him.  He lies in bed some nights shaking, wondering what will happen to him if it keeps growing.  Will there be anything left of him, in the end?

And he knows, he remembers, that he invited it in.  He was glad of it, he’d liked it, it’s his own weakness that’s at fault.  Ma had tried to teach him better, and he’d failed her.  It’s fitting maybe, that his own wickedness will consume him.

-

\----------------------------------------

 

Credence is seventeen and he’s standing on a street corner handing out leaflets.  He’s holding leaflets but no one is taking them.  He hates it.  He hates the way people’s gazes slide off of him, and the way they linger.  He’s both invisible and a freak show, and he’s supposed to be talking about the New Salem Church so that people will hear as they pass, but the words die on his lips.

He can’t bare to look at the people walking by, so he almost doesn’t notice when a man stops in front of him.  He sees the man’s shoes first, looks up to see the rest of his immaculate clothing but can’t bring himself to raise his eyes all the way.  His gaze settles somewhere around the knot of the man’s tie.

“Would you like to learn about the New Salem Church, sir?”

“No.  I’d like to learn about you.”  The man’s voice is authoritative, and Credence’s brow creases.

“Sir?”

The man reaches forward as though to take a leaflet, but he reaches too far and his fingers close over the hand with which Credence is holding the stack of paper.  “Let me show you.”

Credence doesn’t know who this man is, but he knows all too well how people usually react to the kind of information Credence tries to give them, and his heart speeds up.  But he only has a moment in which to worry, because the man stretches out his other hand over the stack of leaflets, and the letters on the page… they start to move.  They glide around, rearranging themselves as they will, and Credence watches breathlessly as they settle into a new pattern.

_WE NEED WITCHCRAFT.  NO SECOND SALEM IN AMERICA!_

He looks up and meets the man’s gaze for the first time, heart gone still in his chest.

“Are you a witch, sir?”

“Yes.”

Credence is seventeen and he’s standing on a street corner in New York City.  He’s holding leaflets and this man has changed them.

Credence should be terrified.  He looks down at the leaflets again, flips through the stack and every last one has been changed.

Credence is seventeen and he’s standing on a street corner with a man.  He’s holding leaflets and he knows exactly what he is.

“Can you help me?”

**Author's Note:**

> The film that Credence and Thomas watch is The Kid (1921), starring and directed by Charlie Chaplin. Turns out it’s actually pretty funny, and the entire thing is free on Youtube if you, like me, have nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon.
> 
> If you enjoyed the fic please leave a comment, or come say hi on [tumblr](http://mercurial-tenacity.tumblr.com/)!


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